Bounded rationality: The logic that leads to decisions or actions that make sense within one part of a system but are not reasonable within a broader context or when seen as a part of the wider system.

Interdisciplinary communication works only if there is a real problem to be solved, and if the representatives from the various disciplines are more committed to solving the problem than to being academically correct.

In a strict systems sense, there is no long-term, short-term distinction.

a society which loses its identity with posterity and which loses its positive image of the future loses also its capacity to deal with present problems, and soon falls apart.…

Aldo Leopold did with his land ethic: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.

But … to be the kind of person who truly accepts his responsibility … requires knowledge of and access to self far beyond that possessed by most people in this society.9

Michael calls “error-embracing.” It takes a lot of courage to embrace your errors.

Error-embracing is the condition for learning. It means seeking and using—and sharing—information about what went wrong with what you expected or hoped would go right.

The thing to do, when you don’t know, is not to bluff and not to freeze, but to learn. The way you learn is by experiment—or, as Buckminster Fuller put it, by trial and error, error, error.